Ao no Hono
by Rileyyy
Summary: When Uchiha Itachi said that he needed the Hyuuga heiress to bow to him, the last thing he expected when he came home was to find her cleaning it.::ItaHina livejounal challenge::
1. Chapter 1

AN: yay! CHAPTER ONE is completed! chapter two will be up within the next couple of days (if things continue the way things are going)

This is part of a fairytale challenge hosted by Edelin, thank you for inviting me to join! I'm having so much fun.

Thanks to my beta Ben. Couldn't have gotten this out without you!

Enjoy!

disclaimer: not mine

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><p>CHAPTER ONE<p>

A porcelain raven glittered under the fragments of sunlight that broke through the foliage. The crimson muzzle of the mask jut out, in imitation of the magnificent bird's beak, onyx framed intelligent dark eyes; dark eyes that watched patiently for any flicker of movement or life. The chirpings of the cicadas were absent, the songs of the birds halted. The forest was too quiet, a sure sign that nature was intruded upon.

He crouched and patiently waited.

He didn't have to wait long.

He tilted his head to the side and heard the tell tale whistle of a kunai as it whipped passed his ear and into the trunk of the tree he was taking refuge in. He leapt off the branch a split second before it burst into splinters and projectile fragments of stone.

Their positions now compromised, he heard rustling from two directions as his enemies moved.

He whipped out a kunai of his own and quickly deflected the shuriken tossed his way, sharp eyes taking note of the direction the weapons came from before making his next move. His long dark hair waved in the air as he free-fell to the ground below. He turned half way down, kunai in hand. The clacks of metal on metal resounded through the disturbed forest as a few well-aimed shuriken were parried and embedded into the trees around him with a solid thunk. He somersaulted to the nearest tree and ran up its trunk, deftly avoiding the thick needles tossed his way.

His skilled fingers nimbly flung three shuriken into a sudden rustling of leaves. His targets were moving. He heard the light thunks as chakra enhanced limbs launched off tree branches and wondered when they would realize he was herding them. He sensed two others a distance behind him, but the two he was pursuing would be directly under him within the next three seconds.

_Perfect_

He whipped out a kunai and attached an end to some sharpened ninja wire. He silently dropped onto the same branch as his first target. He quickly jabbed the man in his jugular a kunai in hand; the arterial spray hit nothing but air. It was like a choreographed dance with multiple partners and he didn't miss a beat, he moved right on. He used the falling body of his dead enemy as leverage to flip himself over his next opponent, he pulled the razor sharp wire taut as he flew over the man's head. The wire cut through the man's neck as though it were a hot knife through butter, slicing the head clear off the body. The raven vanished in a puff of smoke, just in time to avoid a giant spike of stone thrusting through the falling body, halting it in its fall.

More giant spikes ripped through the ground, they thrust towards the sky at an alarming speed, no patch of ground was spared its brutality.

The raven stood on one of the smaller spikes, a thin layer of chakra allowed him to stick to the rough surface. Cool, calm eyes assessed the damaged.

That was a powerful technique

"Come out come out wherever you are!" A slim brunette called out from atop of one of the spikes. "I've been wanting to fight you, Uchiha Itachi-kun!" The woman's dark skin turned a gritty grey, her skin was now harder than stone.

Weapons would not be able to hurt her now.

She scowled indignantly as a food ration bounced forcefully off her head. "Uchiha-san, take me seriously!"

No sooner had those words left her lips than Itachi came at her from behind with a kick aimed at her kidney. Years of training had numbed him to the pain of striking solid stone. His opponent moved into a defensive stance, leaving her head open to attack. He took advantage of the opportunity and the woman stopped his high kick with one of her own. The Uchiha then used the woman's torso as a launch pad with his free foot and flipped himself loose over onto the top of another spike.

That's when he felt his ANBU tattoo burn.

The Hokage was sending him a message and it burned his skin as it was etched into his skin along his inner arm. But the message could wait.

He flickered out of existence and reappeared behind the woman, kunai in hand. He made quick work of stabbing the unaware woman at the base of her skull where her one weak spot was and she crumpled like a bag of wet cement. He then reappeared beside his fourth and last opponent. He grabbed a hold of the enemy shinobi's armed hand, and in one clean movement slit the man's throat.

Uchiha Itachi _shunshin-_ed onto one of the trees and waited.

The stone spikes dissolved, and the terrain returned to normal.

The four cadavers popped out of existence as four people, emerged from the last remaining spike.

"I know that this was a timed, one-shot-kill training course and all, but does anyone else feel ridiculously glad that he's on our side?" Takahashi Shotaro said as sagged against the tree.

His teammates shushed him and elbowed him into a proper stance. He let out a sigh and stood straight, shoulders back and feet apart.

"You fought well," Itachi said to the members of his ANBU training session once they were settled.

Shotaro and his teammates, Satou Akira, Satou Akio, Ishi Aiko stood before him sheepishly. That was an exaggeration of their abilities that day and they knew it.

"But you could have done better." He looked to the first two. "Satou Akio-san, this was a one shot kill training course, that first kunai should have killed me. If you weren't certain of your success then you shouldn't have thrown it, always account for the targets natural instinct to move. Please work on that."

Akio nodded, he would have felt better if Itachi hadn't been so nice about it. He didn't think it was possible to kindly point out a person's short comings until he met his ANBU trainer.

Itachi nodded to both the siblings, Akira and Akio, to indicate that he was speaking to them both now. He wasn't quite done with the first one yet. "You should've been aware of your surroundings. I was herding you to a place where I would have the advantage. You should never have let me get that far. There were two of you, at your current level you should have known that one on one combat with me would end unfavorably for you. Instead you should have attacked me simultaneously or regrouped with your other trainees. You need to work on your individual skills."

"Ishi-san, you-" The Uchiha paused when the message on his arm burned yet again, it must have been urgent, there was only one thing he could think of that would require his immediate attention. "Excuse me."

He pulled the armor down on his arm and read the message. He didn't bother to hide it from the others, as it was written in code.

_Death in family, return home ASAP_

The short impersonal message was more than enough. Itachi already knew what tragedy had struck his family.

His father, Uchiha Fugaku, Uchiha clan head, had been diagnosed with an incurable disease. It started off with a tingling in his feet and then progressed to lack of any feeling. One could have taken a hacksaw to the man's foot and he wouldn't have felt it. His nerves had died and before anyone knew it, it spread. It seemed that one morning it was in his toes and the next he couldn't feel anything below his knee. It traveled fast, he was wheelchair bound within the third week. The illness had eaten away what was once a proud capable shinobi. Fugaku, once a deadly ninja was reduced to a clumsy feeble man. His muscles had atrophied and where there was once strong muscle, was loose skin. The gods were cruel. They had taken away his ability to act as an independent person but left his mind fully intact. A little part of him died every time his wife changed him. He wore a diaper because he could no longer control his bladder or bowel movements. He had to be carted around in his wheelchair like an old man when he had yet to reach his fortieth birthday.

It was better this way, Itachi thought.

Better because they would not have to see him waste away, no more than they already had and he would not have to suffer any longer.

He schooled his features into one of apathy and turned to his third trainee. The cockiest of them all, that confidence was what got better ninjas killed and she would be no different if she persisted on the road she was on.

"You threw a food ration at me." Aiko said indignantly.

"I did. You are lucky I was feeling particularly kind today, an enemy would have thrown something far more harmful." Itachi replied.

"You were aware that I knew your weak spot, yet you did nothing to guard it. I may be more skilled than you but I am not unbeatable. If you had been more careful perhaps you would have lasted longer." The ANBU trainer paused. "You are to never refer to your teammates as their given name. While I have this mask on, I am not Uchiha Itachi, I am Raven. It will do you well to remember that. Out of my four trainees, you lack the most discipline. You are very confident in, what I see is, your remarkably average ability. You will get your teammates killed and that will be on your conscience. I have seen better shinobi fall under the weight of that guilt, I do not want to see yours join that list of names."

Itachi felt another burn on his arm, another message.

He nodded to the next person, "Excuse me, Takahashi-san."

_Honorably discharged, effective immediately_

He adjusted the arm guard until it fit snug and turned back to his last remaining pupil.

"You should never let your weapon be used against you. If that is going to happen please refrain from wielding one until you have had further training. You are now dismissed."

With a flick of his fingers, he disappeared.

Shotaro said as he sagged against a tree. "Does anyone else feel worse about it because he was so damn polite about it?"

Aiko grumbled. "No I feel worse because he didn't even have to activate his damn sharingan to wipe the floor with us."

.

.

.

The Uchiha compound, usually bustling with activity and life was eerily silent. It seemed wherever Itachi went, a hushed silence followed. He was aware of the pitying looks passed his way as the women gossiped once they thought he was too far away to hear.

"_That's the son you know, poor thing. I heard that he used _his_ weapons to do it." _

"_I know its supposed to be honorable and all but I don't understand how he could just take his own life and leave his family behind. What a horrible father." _

There was some truth to what they were saying; Uchiha Fugaku, had not been the world's greatest father but he had not been the worst. He was a stern man who expected to have his way. He had trouble balancing the duties of a clan head and a father and more often than not, Uchiha Fugaku the clan head was the one doing the child rearing, he expected nothing short of excellence and found no use for anything less than perfect. Nothing was too high a price for the clan, not even his own son's childhood.

Itachi was raised during the second shinobi war, there was no romance or idealism when it came to the life of a shinobi. A ninja was merely a tool that did the dirty work for those who were fortunate enough to not have to. He was going to school to learn how to be an efficient killer and he excelled at it. He was eight when he activated his family's blood line limit, the sharingan. His father, like any half decent politician pounced at the opportunity and capitalized on his son's natural gifts.

"You're going to show them just how powerful we are! No one will ever look their nose down on an Uchiha again," His father would say to him with a gleam of pride in his dark eyes."

"_I heard that he did it in the clan meeting room on purpose so that everyone would see."_

Unless it was one of their own

The Uchiha heir found the gossiping exhausting sometimes, especially in times like these. His father had just taken his life and he wished that no one had heard of it just yet. The man was still his father and the loss hurt him.

If being a child prodigy had taught him anything, it was to take what the public threw at him with a polite smile and a kind word. There were always going to be gossiping women. That was a simple fact of life.

He let the words roll off his shoulders and continued on like nothing happened.

He was just glad that it wasn't his mother walking through the streets with him.

Itachi froze.

_His mother_

Here he was taking his time getting home to gather his thoughts, when his mother. His poor mother had just lost her husband.

She would be devastated.

He vanished from sight and reappeared on a rooftop half a mile away, he did this again and again until he reached the familiar rooftop of his family home. He saw two men leaving his home, no doubt members of the Konoha police force that was run by the Uchiha. They walked slowly as they spoke to each other in low voices but he was able to catch bits and pieces of their conversation.

"_Wife discovered the body…found in the clan meeting room…was found eviscerated." _

"_We'll come back later to question Itachi-san." _

He waited until they were going before jumping down to the ground.

He quietly took off his shoes and set them neatly on the mat by the front door.

He padded softly down the hall to the master bedroom. The hall lights were off and there was no movement in the room.

"Oka-sama?" There was no reply.

He silently slid open the door to the master bedroom and found the prone form of Uchiha Mikoto, kneeling in the middle of the room. Blood was all over her, the cheery yellow apron that she always wore was now a morbid orange, splotches of coagulated brown stained the hem.

"Oka-sama," he called out softly, afraid that if he spoke too loud that he would shatter her. He swallowed a curse when his mother's pale face looked up at him, seeing him but not really there. The red of her sharingan eyes bled through the darkening room, the black commas circling the pupil was an abysmal wheel much like the wheels of an old motion picture. It would play over and over again, only it would never fade and it would never end.

That was the gift, the curse of their family's eyes.

The nineteen year old boy suddenly felt much older and felt the years he spent outside the walls of Konoha. Fighting to protect things like this from happening within its walls. But here it was the very thing he fought to keep out of his home. The violence and death, no matter what the circumstance, had made it into his haven and now he had to contain it.

Itachi grabbed a towel from the linen closet and ran it under warm water in the bathroom sink.

His father really could have chosen a better place to off himself. He thought getting angry for the first time, it was Wednesday and he knew. His father _knew_ that his mother cleaned the meeting room on Wednesdays.

It was like clockwork.

Prepare Sasuke's lunch, clean the meeting room

He silently made his way back to his mother and the first thing he did was get her out of the bloody apron. He untied it from behind her and quickly put it behind him out of her line of sight. Gentle hands then began to wipe off the dried blood from his mothers face.

"Itachi," She said softly, crimson eyes staring into nothing. "He was in so much pain."

"It's going to be alright," he said softly and continued to remove the traces of his father's blood from his mother's face.

"When I gave up being a shinobi, I didn't mean to-." His mother rambled, thoughts in disarray. "But I was too slow. I couldn't stop him."

Then, Uchiha Mikoto broke.

With a swirl of black commas, Itachi put his mother into a deep dreamless sleep.

It was better that way.

Sleep was a blissful escape from the real world.

The teenager carried his mother to her bed and tucked her in, just like she used to do. Until he learned how to kill and he wasn't the child he used to be.

He slid the door closed behind him, just as silently as he opened it not that it would have mattered. His genjutsus were powerful, his mother would remain asleep.

Itachi closed his eyes for a moment and leaned his head against the cool wall behind him.

It had been such a long day and it still wasn't over. He eyed at the bloody apron in his hands and let out a long breath.

It wasn't going to be over for a while.

.

.

He found his brother covered in a myriad of things. The small boy was standing on a stool in the kitchen mixing what looked like eggs and tomatoes. Uchiha Sasuke was four years old, an unplanned addition to the family.

"What are you making?" He called out softly, the scene melting his heart.

"Ni-tama!" The little boy called out, his big dark eyes sparkled as he caught sight of his beloved big brother and the unmistakable joy in his voice took the edge off the horrible day he was having. Sasuke haphazardly placed the basin back onto the kitchen counter and ran to greet his hero. "Ni-tama! I didn't even hear you come home."

Itachi nodded and gestured towards the kitchen counter. "I noticed."

"I'm making dinner. Ka-san wasn't feeling well so I wanted to cook dinner for her!"

The older Uchiha smiled, the smile he always reserved for his brother. "Why don't we make it together?"

His brother nodded excitedly and Itachi went to join him.


	2. Chapter 2

So I realized that there was no way that I would be posting decent chapters by the deadline. So I decided that since I'm not going to make the deadline anyway, I'll write my chapters as best as I can and post them up ASAP. I'm sorrryyyy . this week has been so exhausting that I'm falling asleep as I write this AN. I hope you enjoyed chapter two. Chapter three will be up shortly and not the rushed version that I managed to put together either.

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><p>CHAPTER TWO<p>

Pale eyes watched the sleeping form on the bed. They took in the ashen face of Hyuuga Neji, as he lay recovering from an encounter with a particularly nasty main house member. There was a handful of main house members who made a sport of activating the cursed caged bird seal that all the branch members wore on their brow.

She herself had never experienced the pain from having the seal activated, but after caring for her cousin night after night she imagined that it was excruciating.

Hyuuga Hinata let out a sad sigh.

_It shouldn't have to be like this_, she thought as she took a cool damp cloth and brushed her cousin's brow. She did her best to ignore the glowing green seal that marred the porcelain complexion of her kinsman's flesh.

The caged bird seal.

The name described it perfectly. It caged human beings into a life of servitude and she absolutely hated it.

A person's life was that person's right

She studied her reflection in the mirror. Her small pale hands pulled her bangs back to bare her own flawless forehead. There was no ink staining her skin. They were in the same family, but why was it that he bore the seal but she did not?

What right did _she_ have to dictate another life?

Angry tears began to well up; she knew the answer all too well.

Her clan was a travesty of what a family was supposed to be. She longed for a family where her cousins didn't kneel at the door while she and her main house family members ate to their hearts content. She wished that every time she walked down one of the hallways of her home that she could look into the eyes of the people she passed instead of acknowledging the tops of their heads as they bowed to her.

She hated her status as the heir and first born because it meant that her younger sister, Hanabi would be branded if she kept her position.

She didn't want that life for her.

"Hinata-sama," Neji's groggy voice called.

Hinata would have kicked herself in the head if she could. She was training to be a ninja and she was so absorbed in her thoughts she hadn't noticed Neji waking up. A better ninja would have noticed the change in respiratory rate.

"_Ni-san_, are you hungry?" She asked, she hovered over him like a mother-hen. "I can prepare you some soup if you would like."

"I should be getting back to the Branch house." Neji sat up slowly as he fought off waves of nausea. Beads of sweat appeared on his forehead as he struggled.

Hinata was immediately at his side, easing him back down to the bed.

"Please rest some more. I'll be right back with some food." Without waiting for a response, Hinata fled the room. There was no point in waiting around to hear him argue, especially when she was going to do it anyway.

She quietly made her way to the kitchen and began looking through the refrigerator for food. Though cooking was servants work, she found that she rather enjoyed it. In fact, the only time she felt at home was when she was in the kitchen, it was a shame that those times were few and far in between. She didn't have nearly enough practice to confidently prepare a meal for anyone. So she wouldn't bother.

Instead she busied herself with preparing a tray to bring into her room.

"Heiress," a stern voice called out. Hinata flinched at the sudden noise and dropped the bowl in her hands. She quietly activated her Byakugan and found the stern face of Hyuuga Takeshi, a council Elder, standing behind her, arms crossed over his chest. "A better ninja would have sensed my presence."

"I apologize elder. I'll train harder."

"A useless shinobi will still be useless no matter how hard she tries." The pale eyes of her heritage had never seemed so cold. The caustic words were to motivate her to become stronger she knew, but she couldn't help but feel them stabbing into her chest every time they were spoken. Their cruel words were supposed to motivate her.

Hinata bowed her head and fought the tears that welled up in her eyes. She knew she wasn't the most conventional of shinobi. She would rather heal than kill. Her hands were soft, her eyes too expressive. The enemy could read her intentions a mile away.

But her family was a shinobi family, tradition dictated that she be a shinobi as well.

It was hard work, but she was trying. She was determined to make her family proud.

"A worthless heiress will always be worthless," Elder Takeshi continued. "especially if she's wasting her time doing peasant's work."

Hinata kept her head bowed, afraid that if she looked him in the face he would see the hurt in her eyes.

"Return to your room heiress, dedicate your time to something more suiting of your strengths." He looked his nose down at her as he glared. "Perhaps peasant work really is suited for you."

The heiress bowed her head again. "Thank you elder for your advice." She waited for Elder Takeshi to leave before she grabbed the tray of food that she had laid out and hurried to her room.

When she got back, the room was empty

The window was open, her white curtains fluttered as the wind blew but there was no other movement.

She felt right then, just how alone she was.

.

.

.

Itachi stared at the blood that marred what used to be a pristine ivory floor. The red had turned black and viscous after the day had passed. His father's body had been taken to prepare for travel to the afterlife, soon after a neighbor found his mother with the body cradled in her arms.

Itachi needed to prepare for his father's funeral and the last thing he wanted was for Sasuke to stumble upon the macabre scene when his back was turned.

He sighed as he thought of his baby brother tucked safely into bed. Sasuke had been too preoccupied by the sudden attention Itachi was showering him with. Not once had he asked about their father's whereabouts and Itachi found that a small blessing.

He wanted to maintain his brother's innocence for as long as possible. It was unreasonable considering that Sasuke wanted to be a ninja just like his big brother, but Itachi couldn't help it. His childhood had ended prematurely and he would rather die than let the same happen to Sasuke.

His eyes never left the dark stain as he soaked a sponge in water and began to scrub at the floor, mechanically. He squeezed the bloody water into an empty basin and repeated the process until his back hurt and the metallic scent of blood permeated the room.

He couldn't let this get to him, he had a clan to run.

He was now the clan head, responsible for his family, and he felt the burden of responsibility weigh heavily on his shoulders.

Itachi picked up the basin of bloody water for the last time and discarded the contents. He took his time washing his hands, taking care to clean under his nails and between his fingers. For the first time since he got the news, he wondered if this was maybe a blessing in disguise. He would be taken off active duty and would no longer be sent on missions. He would no longer have to kill.

After all these years, this would be the last time anyone's blood would stain his hands.

.

.

.

The sky had turned a beautiful azure by the time Itachi swiped a bit of his blood to the last of the scrolls that his father had left him. He pinched the bridge of his nose and did his best to fight off his headache. He lost count of the scrolls he had read to familiarize himself with the goings of the clan. There were just so many. It almost made him wonder why it was required of the clan head to reach _jounin_ rank before being inaugurated when the majority of the clan head's obligations was paperwork.

His red eyes glowed as he started to skim the document, black commas swirling as he committed everything he read to memory.

…_The Hyuuga are weak; their heiress, a sad excuse for a shinobi. The time to eliminate the clan will be soon. Itachi is getting more skilled as the days go by, he would have no trouble upstaging them, then if need be, eradicating them. They have not changed since the days when they enslaved the Uchiha. No human should be declared another's property, but they persist in their ways. _

Itachi stopped reading.

His father had been contemplating genocide.

Why? Because the Uchiha had been enslaved by the Hyuuga almost eighty years ago?

A long time ago, back when Konoha was merely a budding ninja village with a handful of citizens, the Hyuuga and Uchiha were of one clan. The line had been drawn when the first Hyuuga with black eyes had been born, a sharp contrast to the pale opalescent eyes considered the Hyuuga trademark. No one knew how the Uchiha started, though it was suspected that a Hyuuga woman had been unfaithful and as punishment from _Kami-sama_ himself, bore a child with eyes as dark as night. He was considered a second-class citizen in his own home. The mutation set him aside as inferior and cast him as a Hyuuga servant. The child grew, started a family of his own, and resentment stained his heart as more children with black eyes were born and they too were enslaved. That was the start of the Uchiha clan.

While the Hyuuga eyes had their own ability called the Byakugan, which allowed them to see chakra pathways and see great distances, the Uchiha soon discovered an ability of their own called the Sharingan. Like their forefathers, they were able to see chakra pathways, but the Sharingan also gave them clarity of perception as well as photographic memory. After a century and a half of living in servitude, the Uchiha had decided that they had had enough. With the secrets of their eyes unlocked, the Uchiha revolted and broke free.

Unfortunately, the Hyuuga found that they rather enjoyed being catered to and continued to enslave their family members but took precautions the next time around. With the Uchiha gone, the Hyuuga divided its members into a main and branch family, the firstborn into the main and the ones that came after into the branch. Having learned from the Uchiha revolt, they implemented the cage bird seal which allowed any member of the main family to assert his or her dominance over the branch members with a simple hand seal.

Itachi closed his eyes to think.

Genocide was wrong. Killing at all when one did not have to, was wrong.

But his father was right, the Hyuuga would never change their ways. Something had to be done

He felt like he was suffocating and he needed to leave the room.

He remembered a hidden grove his father used to take him to train. As a child, that grove became a place of quiet contemplation, as well as a place to hone his skills before he got access to the ANBU training grounds.

He calmly got up and left the room. That was where he needed to go.

Itachi retraced the steps he took what must have been a life time ago. There was new growth and what used to be sapling trees all those years ago had grown tall. The forest had changed, but he saw the things he needed to see to get to where he was going.

"_Bishounen_!" A frail voice called out. "Oy, _bishounen_!"

Itachi stopped where he was and began to look around. Though he was not attempting to be stealthy, his footfalls were soundless. Who would be out in the woods at this time of night and how did they know he was nearby? He activated his sharingan, one could never be too careful, and scanned the forest surrounding him.

He spotted a cluster of tightly contained chakra just twenty feet away from him. The chakra seemed to slither in its host, much like a snake and he wondered what such a powerful person was doing out in the woods this far from civilization.

Or better yet, he wondered what such a powerful person was doing in the disguise of an elderly woman in distress.

"Do you think you can take the time to help an old woman?" The shinobi called. The woman's gnarled fist thumped against her lower back as the other held steadfastly to a cane.

Red eyes shifted as he glanced at the old woman. His eyes took in even the minutest details but found nothing physically wrong with her, just that she had too much chakra to be a normal geriatric. His eyes spotted faint swirls of chakra coming from the bricked structure beside her, further inspection revealed it to be a well.

He deactivated his bloodline limit and jumped down, performing a simple _henge_ on his clothes to hide his identity. It would not do for this stranger to discover his heritage only to use it against him.

"_Hai, oba-san_. I apologize I had trouble finding you in the dark." Itachi bowed his head low. "What can I do to help you?"

"Down there, I dropped my scroll," the elderly woman with her strange glowing amber eyes, she pointed down the well with a knobby twisted finger. "I need my scroll back, otherwise _terrible_ things will happen."

Itachi peered down the well to find it dried and dirty. The muggy bottom was illuminated by a brilliant blue light, but its rays never reached past the ledge. It almost seemed as though it did not want to attract attention, like it had a mind of its own.

He did not miss the fact that this person needed his help when she was brimming with chakra. A simple _ninjutsu_ would have done the trick, but she needed him.

She needed someone to get the scroll for her.

"How did it get down there?" Itachi asked carefully.

The woman gave him a smile that crinkled her eyes, but that did nothing to hide the hard intelligent gleam in them. "The kids were energetic and I lost hold. I've spent the whole night looking for it."

"It must be very important for you to spend so much time looking for it." He put on a smile that felt unusual on his face. But he learned as a child warrior that his smiles were disarming and he used it to his advantage whenever he needed to.

"It's very important." She replied. She thumped her twisted hand against her back again as she looked around for some place to rest her heavy behind. "Please _bishounen_, I'm afraid my bones can't handle the cold as well as they used to."

"Of course _oba-san_," Itachi made a quick hand seal to summon water from the humid air. A torrent came rushing down from the sky and swirled rapidly along the walls of the well. It disappeared just as fast as it appeared.

_Ninjutsu_ would not work.

"_Ninjutsu_ won't work." The woman pointed to the bottom of the well with the end of her cane. "You have to go down there _bishounen_."

He took a step away from the brick ledge to take one last look at his surroundings in the beginnings of the sunrise. He needed an alternative escape route. He would not be able to perform any _ninjutsu_ and he had to assume that the woman would be no help.

He felt killer intent shoot through him and knew that if he did not make up his mind soon, he would have a fight on his hands.

"Hurry!"

Itachi used kunai as wedges to jump on to and leapt deeper and deeper into the well. He felt his chakra reserves draining at an alarming rate. He was beginning to feel light headed and fatigued. The world tilted at a weird angle and he for the life of him could not get it straight again. He felt something leaking from his nose and raised a hand to it.

It came away red with his blood.

He wondered if staying up on the ground with the suspicious old woman was a better idea after all.

"Hurry child! Tie the rope around the scroll!" The woman called, her voice had an almost feral edge to it as the rope swung back and forth in front of him.

He stumbled as he tried to regain his balance, the lady was shouting something at him but he could not make out what she was saying. There was a wind in his ears, and its howling got louder and louder with every heartbeat.

He stumbled again, but this time he misjudged the distance between himself and the wall and fell to the ground.

As Itachi struggled to his knees, his finger brushed the parchment of the scroll and suddenly, everything was calm.

"Hurry Itachi-kun," Itachi thought he was seeing things for a moment when the face of the woman narrowed into a pale face of a man with sinister amber eyes. When he shook his head clear and looked again, she was as he first saw her.

"Just give it to me child!" When he made no move to pick up the scroll, the woman leaned over the ledge and reached out her hand, only to scream in agony when the blue light touched her skin. Her shriveled form started to stretch as she grew and her back straightened. Her short brittle grey hair grew longer and the face of the man that he saw before, took the place of the wrinkly façade of the woman.

Though he had never met him, he recognized that face.

The pieces of the puzzle had come together long before this scene unraveled before him. The first glimpse of the man's face was what gave him away.

Orochimaru was a powerful ninja who was hell bent on two things immortality and the destruction of Konoha.

The scroll must have been important if he wanted it. Someone had put a protective seal on the scroll that reacted whenever Orochimaru touched its blue light. The chakra drainage was a failsafe mechanism in case he was able to bypass the first security measure.

"If you know what's good for you boy, give me that scroll!"

Itachi picked up the scroll and made sure to smear his blood across the seal.

"No you fool! You have no idea what you've done!" Orochimaru yelled, the blue light pulsed and with every beat it grew. Wind came out of nowhere and whipped around him. It tore at his clothes and flung mud onto the well walls. All breath was ripped from his lungs and it only got worse. The gusts got stronger and he worried that the well would collapse onto him. Then just like before, it stopped just as abruptly as it started.

Itachi opened his eyes when he felt a tap on his shoulder. He hadn't even realized that he closed them. He looked up at the ledge where Orochimaru was last seen but found him gone.

"Whatcha looking for?"

Itachi looked behind him and found a giant blue bird. The bird looked like a crested auklet dipped into shimmering blue paint. The blue feathers on its body glittered and glowed as though there were an internal light. The bird had brilliant cerulean eyes that matched the light its scroll emitted and a goofy smile that immediately endeared it to Itachi. It did not seem possible for a bird of its size to fit in the confines of the old well, but it did.

"Hi!" The bird chirped. Its blue feathers ruffled as it gave a cheerful yelp. Then to Itachi's surprise, the bird spread his wings and gave them a powerful flap. He covered his eyes with a forearm expecting gust, but when he found none he looked over at the bird. Its wings glided through the walls as though it had no substance like smoke through a screen. "I'm Aoi!"

"Hello." Itachi greeted. He eyed the remnants of a summoning array that was slowly dissolving from the well bottom.

The bird was a summon.

"Whatcha want me to do for ya?" Aoi whistled. He preened his feathers and pecked at the floor behind Itachi, His thick neck glided through Itachi's body as his head bobbed.

"Excuse me?"

"How should I say this? Your wish is my command!"

Itachi did not know how to react. When he was a child, he read a story book about a summon that granted wishes; a lot like the Arabian myth about the genie of the lamp. But he believed it to be a myth.

"So, ya gonna tell me whatcha want?"

He thought about it for a moment and nodded up the well. The _kunais_ that he had used as a makeshift staircase had been unhinged by the winds from the scroll. He wanted to keep the weapons he had left in case he needed them later. He would not put it past Orochimaru to attack him once he was on solid ground.

"Would you mind getting me out of here?" The words had barely left his lips when he felt a tugging at his stomach and a disorienting pull. He found himself falling from the sky into a canopy of leaves. He barely managed a _kawarimi_ in time to switch out before he got a face full of _fiber._

Perhaps he should have requested for something just a little bit safer as his first request.

He flipped neatly onto a tree branch and took a moment to quickly put Aoi's scroll into a storage seal and thought about his next request for Aoi as he waited for the bird to appear.

"I'm sorry!" Aoi cried. He appeared out of thin air beside him and the branch they were both resting on gave a mysterious shake. "That didn't come out like I wanted." tears leaked from the bird's eyes. "I have trouble controlling my chakra."

"It's okay Aoi. Thank you for your help," Itachi gave a small bow of his head.

"Master! You're so kind!" the avian creature dried his eyes right away and gave the Uchiha a big smile. "Is there anything else I can do for ya?"

"Please get me down from this tree now, safely and gently." Itachi worded carefully.

Aoi gave a cheerful smile. "I can do that!"

It felt like he blinked, but he knew he had not his eyes had been wide open the entire time. One moment he was perched comfortably on a tree and the next, he found himself crouching on the grass not too far from the well. The pastels of the sunrise were beginning to color the sky, and the morning dew made the grass slippery. Aoi had gotten him down from the tree just as he had asked.

He hadn't even slipped on the slippery grass

He would have to word his requests carefully from now on.

"As for my next request, please eliminate Orochimaru as a threat to Konoha. Have him decapitated and his body burned to ashes before he can realize what is happening to him."

Aoi nodded.

Itachi barely stepped aside in time to avoid the bloody head that fell from the sky.

"Was that okay?" Big hopeful eyes watched Itachi, and he nodded in response.

"Thank you Aoi, you did well."

"Is there anything else Master?"

Itachi shook his head. "No that will be all, thank you." He sealed Orochimaru's head into another storage scroll and made his way home. The sun was up now and he wanted to get some rest before his father's _otsuya._


	3. Chapter 3

hello! this is chapter three i hope you guys enjoy reading it as much as i did writing it. =)

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><p>CHAPTER THREE<p>

Itachi rolled the blue scroll between his hands. The flickering of the candle beside him provided him a rhythm.

Back and forth, back and forth.

His father's _otsuya_ would be later in the evening, but right now it was just the two of them.

He could tell his father whatever he wanted. No one was around and the series of privacy jutsus he cast would ensure that no one could hear. He glanced at his father's body; a katana was placed on his chest to provide him a safe journey to the afterlife. From where he sat his father looked peaceful. You never would have known that he cut open his stomach in a gesture of painful relief from life.

He stared at the space beside his father's body. "I can only imagine what you would have done if you were in possession of this scroll, _Otou-sama_. I hate to admit but that scares me."

Itachi looked at the scroll in his hands.

It contained so much power that it was no wonder that Orochimaru wanted it. He shivered when he thought of the disastrous possibilities the scroll held.

"I am not certain what I will do with the Hyuuga just yet," He said softly. "However I am certain of what I will not do. I will not commit genocide to put the clan elders at ease. I will come up with another way to humble them."

With that said he sealed the scroll back up and hid it on his person.

Itachi stood and gave a low bow. "I apologize, I cannot do as you have instructed."

There wasn't anything else to say so he left.

He closed the door silently and reactivated the security seals on the room. With one last look, he quietly made his way to his room.

His inauguration would be in a few days, it was best to do it as soon as possible to avoid unrest within the clan. The younger members of his clan would want to know what he would do to improve the Uchiha but the older generation would want to know what would be done about the Hyuuga. It was something he had been pondering upon himself.

If his ancestors had not revolted all those years ago, his entire family would be something akin to slaves and that did not bode well with him.

The Hyuuga had to stop what they were doing.

He had to control it from their weak point, their future, and then attack it. Though he barely spoke to the Hyuuga Heiress beyond the required pleasantries, there had to be some merit to the things that clan was saying. He had to ensure that they kept her. If what they were saying was true and she was an unfit head then the clan would implode in and of itself without any help from him.

But first, he needed something that would burn at the abundant Hyuuga pride.

"I need the Hyuuga Heiress to bow to me."

.

.

.

Veins bulged slightly around the girl's temples as chakra coursed through them. Her hands glowed and created streaks of light as they moved. Her fingers brushed by Neji's arm, barely making contact but that was all she needed. She got herself into a defensive position as fast as she could but that was no use, his chakra covered fingers closed off all the chakra pathways in her defending arm and now it hung useless at her side.

Though she managed to close off a handful of chakra pathways in her opponent's arm, she had lost control of her arm completely. It was a bad trade-off.

She pivoted on her heels, her functioning arm bent in a defensive stance in front of her. She made sure to coat her arm with chakra to protect herself from her cousin's next attack.

"How many times do I have to correct your stance, Hinata?" Her father's stern voice called out. Hyuuga Hiashi stood at the stairs watching with his arms crossed across his chest. She let her chakra seep back into her body, no point in wasting it.

"Neji, please correct her form" Her father ordered. She didn't miss the way he referred to her cousin by his name, said with a fondness that she found herself jealous of. Her father had only ever said her name with disdain.

Neji bowed and moved closer to position her body. He moved her arm closer to her torso. Her feet shoulder width apart with one slightly ahead of the other. Knees bent to lower her center of gravity, her palm spread, fingers together at face level. Her useless arm was supposed to be protecting her side, but it couldn't and that would give her opponent the advantage.

"Thank you Neji, proceed."

Neji raised an eyebrow in warning before starting on a full frontal assault. She managed to turn in time to escape the first few jabs but Neji had repositioned himself so that the next few would land. She couldn't get her chakra up in time; some of his jabs didn't have chakra and therefore didn't interfere with her chakra flow. He was going easy on her.

She twirled into his defense and elbowed him in the gut. When he was off balance she made her attack. Her fingers ran along his arm and obstructed every chakra pore along the way. He wouldn't feel a thing, only a sudden numbness while his arm would hang useless at his side just like hers did. The playing field was now even.

"Your form is wrong," Hiashi interrupted again. "You should be the most proficient at it, you are the future head! How are you going to lead this clan using your bastardized version of the _Jyuuken_?"

Hinata bowed her head. "I'm sorry father."

"Reopen his _tenketsu_, start from the beginning."

She shot her cousin a sheepish smile and lowered her head in a small bow of apology. He merely turned to his side to give her access to his limp arm in response.

"We are losing sunlight here Hinata, I suggest you hurry if you want Neji to make it to dinner."

"Yes father." She stammered. She quickly stepped up to her cousin and ran her fingers along his arm just like she did before and stepped away.

"Begin"

She barely managed to dodge the first few strikes. She was getting tired and it showed.

Lately she was feeling tired and irritable and it showed. Over the past few days she went to bed early, but woke up the following morning feeling like she hadn't slept at all. It was as though her body was up and about while her mind was resting because the last thing she remembered was going to bed. After her daily training regimen, she found herself more exhausted than she ever was before. It was beginning to weigh on her because she was finding it harder to focus. She made mistakes she hadn't made since she was four years old. It gave the elders more ammunition and she was helpless to improve at her present state.

She clumsily dodged to the side at Neji's next advance and tripped, fumbling into a somersault and barely landing on her feet. Her shoulder ached at her faulty roll and she felt a sharp pain in her ankle.

"Stop," Her father ordered. Neji obediently stopped where he was and relaxed his stance. "You will continue tomorrow. I expect you to practice your katas Hinata."

"Hai otou-sama." She ignored the pulsing pain in her lower extremities and gave a bow as best as she could. She waited for her father to leave before slowly walking to the stairs of the training ground and taking a seat on the steps.

"You were distracted." Neji said, "Why?"

"No reason ni-san." She replied. She gingerly rolled her foot and turned it this way and that, to see how bad the damage was and found her ankle fully functional aside from the sharp shooting pains. She took out a roll of bandage and tightly wrapped her ankle before standing up to test it. "I'm just a little tired. I think I'll go to bed early tonight."

Her cousin said nothing as he took a seat. He patiently waited for her to position herself so that he'd have access to her arm and went about restarting her chakra flow. She shuddered at the pins and needles feeling that swept through her arms. "Thank you."

He said nothing, but merely nodded his head as he accepted her gratitude.

"You should go have dinner." Hinata said softly.

"I'll escort you back to your room."

"That isn't necessary," The heiress said in a rare moment that showcased her authority. "I know you've had a long day too _ni-san_. Please go have your dinner and turn in for the night."

Neji bowed respectfully at her dismissal and waited for her to leave.

"Right," she nodded. "I will see you another time. Thank you for your help." She left as quickly as she could, knowing that he wouldn't straighten his posture until she did.

Hinata managed to walk slowly back to her room without encountering any of the clan elders or her father. She had already had her dinner hours ago and would not be running into them again until the next day. That was a relief.

Once in the privacy of her room she procured a water basin and summoned water. Her elemental ninjutsu was rather elementary as the Hyuuga used strictly taijutsu. She discovered that her practice of ninjutsu was rather frowned upon when she was caught using it a year ago. But that didn't mean that she stopped practicing it.

She stuck a finger in the water to test the temperature and was pleased to find it cold. She unwrapped her ankle and slowly settled her foot into the basin; the water provided a refreshing numbness that she wished would spread to her heart.

Maybe then, she'd be the heir her clan wanted her to be.

She let her foot soak a little longer before she got ready for bed. She crawled into her sheets and willed herself to sleep. She needed to be well rested because it was only going to get harder.

.

.

.

By the time Itachi returned home, he was beyond exhausted. The last time he felt so drained was when he went six days on two hours of sleep. In reality, that wasn't too far from the truth. He'd been avidly avoiding his home in the days following his father's death. There was a darkness in the air that he didn't quite know how to get rid of.

He fingered the elaborate embroidery on the hem of his ceremonial robes as he walked to his room. He could not remember the last time he had been in his room and he wondered if the dust started piling yet.

He hated dust, but duty called and he had bigger things to worry about than how many dust bunnies he had in his room.

As of three days ago, Uchiha Itachi, was officially the head of the Uchiha Clan. The inauguration was long and tedious; it would have been more entertaining to watch paint dry. He had almost wished that he was out on the field, assassinating crime lords like he was just the other day.

Almost.

Had it really only been a week since his father passed away?

It seemed much longer.

He rubbed his eyes and flared his chakra throughout the house.

His mother was in her room resting as was expected. She was taking her husband's death rather hard and anointing him as the new head so quickly certainly didn't help things, but it had to be done.

Sasuke's chakra was nowhere to be found but that was expected. He was spending the night under the supervision of his cousin Obito, playing in blissful ignorance of recent events. Itachi wanted to keep it that way for just a bit longer.

Itachi stopped in front of his bedroom door, eyes sharp and alert.

Someone was in his room.

He drew a hidden kunai from his sleeve and slowly opened the door. He did not like killing, but if someone had managed to sneak into his home, his family was in danger.

That left him with no choice

He darted into the room, kunai in hand. He came up behind the intruder and held the kunai to her throat.

"Don't move."

The woman turned away from the weapon and he came face to face with Hyuuga Hinata and her pale lavender eyes.

"_Okaeri_ Uchiha-sama."

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><p>i hope you enjoyed! please review and let me know what you think!<p> 


	4. Chapter 4

AN: i know this took forever! i'm sorry. i had a MAJOR plot problem, but now that's pretty much resolved so i should be updating more regularly. (well as regularly as my school schedule will allow anyway). Here is chapter four, i hope you enjoy it!

Thank you so much for being so patient!

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><p>CHAPTER FOUR<p>

Itachi's breath hitched when she flashed him a brilliant smile, one so innocent and carefree he was envious. His gaze swept over her dark hair and long sooty eyelashes that waved up at him when she blinked under his scrutiny. Her pale eyes watched him with the untainted curiosity found in children and he wondered how she made it as a shinobi with such expressive eyes.

"I didn't think you'd be coming home today," Hinata said. You never would have guessed she was staring death in the face with the way she nonchalantly pushed his armed hand away and went back to the laundry basket in her arms. Her motions were slow, as though she were unused to the labor but his clothes came out in a neatly aligned pile with the Uchiha fan face up.

What was going on here?

He knew he should have run her through with his kunai. He didn't necessarily need her in good health to interrogate her but something about this situation just screamed that something wasn't right and that violence wasn't the way.

He watched with confusion as Hinata fluttered comfortably around his room, putting his clothes back in their proper place. Wary eyes watched as she moved from the closet to his dresser and then back to his bed where his laundry was laid out. She was bound to make a wrong move at some point. He took in the night gown she was wearing, it hugged her in a way that made it impossible to conceal weapons and he wondered exactly what she would be using to attack him.

"Can you disrobe please? I won't be able to wash your clothes if you are still wearing them." The Hyuuga Heiress said, she held the laundry basket in her arms and nodded to his clothes.

Itachi froze.

He was so frozen in his confusion that he barely registered Hinata's small hands as they unhooked his _haori-himo_, until she slid the fabric off his shoulders.

He raised a hand to stop her, only to have her take his kunai away and continue with undressing him. "Uchiha-sama, please allow me to do my job."

Her job?

The incredulity of the situation finally hit him. The Hyuuga Heiress, the closest thing Konoha had to a princess, was in his room undressing him and doing his laundry.

"If you can take off everything else, I would like to wash them all together." And then she disappeared.

It was very possible that his sleepless nights caught up with him. Whatever he walked home to could be a hallucination or even a genjutsu.

He put his hands together in a single seal, "Kai," he said quietly as he sent a pulse of chakra throughout the room to disperse any genjutsu. He looked around and found things the way they were a moment ago, his closet door was slightly ajar, his bed sloppily made and his boxer briefs were neatly stacked on top of his bed. Hyuuga Hinata was not an illusion. She really had been in his room.

The only logical explanation to this situation was his newly acquired bird summon and knowing Aoi's penchant for misinterpretation he would not be surprised to find that the bird was behind this.

"Aoi, I need to speak with you." He said to the air. He felt a little odd, but he knew that Aoi could hear him. How else would this mess have come about?

He thought back to what he said the night of his father's otsuya and how when he said that he needed the Hyuuga Heiress to "bow to him", Aoi could have very well taken that as a request.

This was not good.

"Aoi, I really need to speak with you." Itachi called again, a picture of calm that belied his inner turmoil.

With a flash of bright light, the blue bird appeared with a sponge in his wings. Soap suds lathered up in his feathers and crowned the bird's head in a tiara of bubbles.

"I got here as fast as I could!" Aoi cried. He took a wing and swiped at his eyes. "What can I do for you master?"

Itachi took a moment to realize that his summon had been _bathing_ and shook off the absurdity of it.

"Please take a moment to make yourself decent." The Uchiha said quietly. He turned his back to the bird to give the avian a moment of privacy.

"Master is so kind! Aoi will only take one second!" Itachi heard water coming but was not surprised by the water droplets that sprayed right through him. Instead of pondering on how that was possible he planned out a course of action.

"I'm dressed now Master! I'm ready!"

When he turned back, the bird donned a bathrobe and a hair roller for his bangs.

Itachi chose to skip over the inanity of the situation and dove right for the questions he needed answered. "Is Hyuuga-san's presence in my home going to be a permanent thing?"

Aoi tapped his beak as he thought about it. "Nope, she goes home everyday just before sunrise. Is she doing a good job? Do you like her?" He clasped his wings in front of him as though saying a prayer and Itachi wondered if perhaps he was.

"This was not what I had in mind," he replied slowly. "Is there any way to reverse this?"

The auklet burst into tears in a display of ear piercing histrionics. "A wish made is a wish granted, those are the terms of the contract. I can't change it master, I'm sorry." Itachi winced when his summon pulled him into a back cracking embrace. "Please don't give me away master, I promise I'll be good!"

Itachi gasped for air and performed a seal-less kawarimi that replaced him with the pillow on his bed. His lungs expanded and he hungrily took in much needed oxygen. "Can you tell me the parameters of the request when you granted it?" he asked as he cleared his throat.

Aoi hugged the pillow Itachi switched with to his chest and hid his face. "I promise not to get angry."

The bird looked up, a hopeful smile on his goofy face. "You're the best master!"

"Thank you Aoi, what were the parameters of the request?" he asked again.

Aoi opened his beak to respond but before he had a chance, Itachi sensed Hinata's chakra as she neared his room.

"I'll speak with you later Aoi, I apologize for disturbing your bath." With that said, Aoi gave a sad bow before he disappeared in another flash of light and Itachi quickly began to undo one of the many ties of his formal outfit. The last thing he needed was for her to breach the borders of his comfort zone and strip him down to nothing herself.

"Uchiha-sama? Are you dressed?

"Just a minute," Itachi called out. His fingers worked quickly to unravel the long belt, but it was just never ending. There was a reason his father only wore his formal wear when there was a clan meeting, and Itachi was beginning to see it, even once a month was really too much of a hassle. Practiced fingers undid the numerous binds of the complex outfit and as he did this he realized that for the first time in his life he didn't know what to expect.

"Uchiha-sama, is everything okay? Do you need my help?"

His fingers worked even faster as he pulled his weapons from their hidden compartments, her voice sounded close, too close and her proximity was motivation to get changed as quickly as possible.

"I'm okay," He called back in response and he hoped that he sounded far calmer than he felt. His fingers moved faster as he rushed to untie the numerous belts that held his formal wear together.

"Are you sure Uchiha-sama?" Itachi had just finished pulling on a pair of pants when the Hyuuga stuck her head in to check up on him.

An awkward silence filled the air as the red on her cheeks turned darker and darker at the sight of a topless Itachi.

Itachi quickly grabbed the pillow off the floor where Aoi dropped it and shielded himself from her unwanted attention.

"I'm sorry, you didn't sound okay when I-uh." Hinata began pushing her index fingers together as she looked away from Itachi's undressed form. "I'm sorry, I'll wait outside! I'm sorry!" She bowed her head and bolted from the room. He locked the door after her and only then did he deem it safe enough to drop his pillow.

He felt his heart pound against his ribcage at his indecent exposure, in no way was it thrilling or did he have the desire to do it again. He felt thoroughly violated.

He grabbed one of the newly folded shirts and pulled it on over his head. He then took a deep breath and unlocked the door to face the still blushing Hyuuga who waited just beyond the oak.

He caught her gaze but felt his cheeks burn uncomfortably at the action and decided that he needed to do something before they stood there the rest of the night in awkward silence.

"I can go grab-" He motioned awkwardly back to his bed where he had neatly laid out his dreadful formal wear. He cursed himself for not having it in his arms to save the trip and just maybe this awkward encounter. Instead of waiting for a response he walked quickly across the room to his bed to grab his clothes along with a few well needed breaths.

Things were not going the way he had planned.

He had expected to come home and having to dust his bed off before going to bed. What he did not expect was to come home to a strange woman in his room prancing around in her provocative night wear as she did servant work. He did not expect her to undress him and least of all, he did not expect to have his modesty violated. But there he was, exhausted out of his mind, standing in his room, trying to figure out how to hand off his clothes without having to look her in the eye or her face. In fact he would much prefer it if he didn't have to speak with her either; if he could avoid any form of contact it would make his surreal day just a little more bearable.

Unfortunately, he was the Uchiha-clan head. He was well versed in etiquette and social niceties. He'd been performing them since he was able to string two words together in a curt, coherent sentence. It went against his upbringing to toss the girl his clothes and just walk off without so much as a thank you or a polite nod, both of which usually required eye contact.

He took a calming breath before he turned around to face his house guest and let out a sigh of relief.

The shaded light of the sunrise began to peak out from under the shades of his window. His shadow was cast on the wooden floor, just his.

She was gone.

.

.

.

Hinata sat up in bed and rubbed at her eyes with a fisted hand. Her lips parted in a tired yawn. How was it possible that she went to bed even earlier than she had the night before but she felt even more exhausted? Surprisingly, she felt more content with herself than she had in a long time, accomplished like she had done more with herself. She fought every desire to go back to sleep and return to her dream.

She furrowed her brows as she realized something troubling. Her dream, the one that made her feel so happy was starting to slip away. It seemed the more she tried to remember it, the faster it escaped her and she was left behind with a feeling that something was missing.

It left her in a rather sour mood.

She sighed and gingerly climbed out of bed to start her day, her ankle seemed to have swelled twofold over night and she didn't want to jostle it. She went through her daily routine in a trance. She hid her limp as best as she could as she walked through the halls of the compound. The branch members were the only ones awake at this hour and they bowed to her as she passed on her way to the kitchen. Even though it was below her, she made tea for her father every morning just like her late mother had done. It kept her anchored and her father never complained.

She prepared the tea as fast as she could, the last thing she wanted when she was irritable and exhausted was another chance encounter with one of the Clan Elders. Once the water boiled she poured the tea into a teacup and set it on a small tray to bring to her father.

Her steps echoed softly in the barren hallway; there was little light but she knew her father would be in the clan meeting room looking into clan affairs. It was where he always was at that time of day. Her feet padded silently along the cold tiled floor of the Hyuuga compound and she fought the shiver that went down her spine.

The door was open a crack when she got there and she was about to knock when she heard voices that didn't belong to her father.

"_We would like to speak to you about your new proposal," _Elder Takeshi started._ "We need you to elaborate."_

She stifled a gasp when her father her looked her right in the eye through the crack in the door and spoke._ "What is there to explain? I'm abolishing the caged bird seal." _

Her thoughts were racing a mile a minute at this new information. Her father was doing what she could only dream of; he was going to get rid of that wretched seal, she felt her heart swell at the news.

"_You cannot be serious!" _

"_Do not forget your place, your role is to advise me!"_ Her father snapped, eyes burning with indignation. _"In matters concerning the clan, my word is absolute."_

"_Hiashi, do you have any idea what this would do to the clan?" _

Her father's eyes blazed in a way that she had never seen and she gasped at the sudden passion behind his usually shrouded eyes. _"Do you?" _

"_Heiress, was there something you wanted?" _one of the elders called out to her. _"It is not becoming of someone of your stature to eavesdrop on a conversation that does not concern you."_

Hinata slid open the door with one hand and sheepishly took a step in to the room. "I apologize for intruding; I only came to bring my father his morning tea." She kept her head low and glanced at the elders through her curtain of hair. She quickly made her way to her father's side and placed the steaming mug on his desk. "If you'll pardon me, I'll take my leave." She gave a low bow before she took three steps back and turned to leave the room.

Once she shut the door behind her, she let out a breath that she didn't know she had been holding. Whatever it was that she walked in to it did not bode well with her.

She slowly made her way back to her room as she pondered upon her father's actions. Her clan was as political as one could get. The clan was usually run by the clan elders and the clan head was just there as a figurehead. Her father would be the first to exercise his authority over the elders and there was no way that this would end well.

She saw her neatly made bed, one of the branch members had probably snuck in while she was out to make it. She fingered the comforter and felt tears of joy well up in her eyes.

Soon, they wouldn't have to _be_ unseen. The branch and main house would be able to sit at one table and have their meals. The dividing lines of the caged bird seal would be gone and they would be a family.

Up until now it had been a dream. But dreams are called dreams because they're unattainable. She couldn't help but wonder if she was being naïve. Dreams were these amazing things because they were just that much better than reality. It was wonderful that her father wanted to do away with the segregation within her family, but there was just no way that the elders would allow it.

A cold shiver went down her spine.

Suddenly she wanted to go back to bed and back to that dream she couldn't remember. She had felt safe there.


	5. Chapter 5

CHAPTER FIVE

Itachi grabbed three kunai from his pouch and hid them in the lengths of his fingers as he waited for the enemy to attack. He stood- hands at his side, arms relaxed, body coiled to react at any given moment. The wind howled as it whipped his hair free of its confines; his keen senses picked up the rustling of the leaves and the sound of children playing off in the distance.

His opponent stood a distance away in his usual lackadaisical pose but the fact that he didn't have his orange bound soft porn out was evidence enough that he was taking Itachi seriously. Hatake Kakashi watched him, his keen mismatched eyes followed even his smallest movements. The black swirl in his red iris categorized his every move, that combined with his mental acuity made him a dangerous opponent, even in a spar.

With barely an effort Itachi's eyes bled red as the black commas in them spun. His vision shifted, and suddenly everything he saw had a cleaner edge to them. The blades of grass in his peripheral vision looked crisp and vibrant. While the frames of each individual leaf on the tree twenty yards to his right stood out in different distinct shades of green. His enhanced eyes picked up the subtleties of Kakashi's stance; the slight tensing of his right calf meant an attack was coming soon.

"Coming _ikemen-kun_?" His former ANBU captain called out lazily. Itachi shrugged off the annoying nickname Kakashi came up for him and instead watched him carefully. He wouldn't get many opportunities. He would have to take advantage of every chance he got. Kakashi was the Copy-ninja: as deadly as he was lazy.

"Oy _Ikemen-kun_," Itachi felt the air shift around him and flipped just in time to avoid a chakra enhanced kick to his solar plexus.

_Rule number one: Don't get hit. _

It wasn't a rule followed only by medics. The basic rule was to land as many hits and get away untouched if possible. His species were a people who were trained to kill before they hit puberty. Every hit was designed to do the most damage or bring about death.

He bent back, his body a perfect upside down "u' and sprang forward with a counterattack. In a blink of an eye, his hand deftly slashed a kunai through Kakashi's Achilles tendon. He launched two other kunai at the brachial and femoral arteries of his opponent and in that same motion, caught the same foot and gave the extremity a violent twist before yanking it down so that the body would follow into his rising knee. A sickening crunch marked the breaking of spinal cord.

Itachi caught the flicker of chakra just before the final blow and knew he was fighting a clone. He feigned ignorance and waited for the moment when Kakashi would dispel his clone. The clone was modeled after a smoke bomb and upon dispelling it quickly flooded the area with dense smog.

He felt a shift and instinct told him to get airborne and fast. He sent a surge of chakra to his feet and felt the ground explode into patches of grass and loose dirt. The sudden displacement of land revealed Kakashi just as he was about to unleash his own technique.

The unexpected loss of cover would catch Kakashi off guard, but only or a moment; that split second was his chance. Itachi unsealed a _fuuma_ shuriken from one of his storage scrolls and sent it at the temporarily disoriented man. Metal met flesh and flesh promptly exploded.

_Another clone._

Itachi ricocheted off a tree branch and propelled himself into the explosion. His enhanced eyes spotted the swirl of chakra just behind a thick tree. He flung a kunai at the base of Kakashi's skull, only to have it parried.

"Ah ah _Ikemen-kun_, no weapons, no chakra!" That was the only warning Kakashi gave before Itachi was on the defensive again. He lifted one foot, then the other to avoid the kunai thrown at the ground before him and narrowed his eyes at their thud. Kakashi was the epitome of a shinobi, a cheater. He took out a kunai to block the remaining projectiles before breaking into the Copy-nin's defenses.

"_Taijutsu_ only," Itachi muttered back even though he knew better. Kakashi never played by the rules. He aimed a fist at Kakashi's solar plexus and pivoted on his heel into Kakashi's guard and struck an elbow at the man's kidney.

"_Maa_, well a _shinobi_ should look underneath the underneath." Kakashi sounded sheepish but looked anything but. He began to swell then, a telltale sign of a clone explosion technique that Itachi favored. He was living up to his name, Copy-nin indeed. Itachi created just enough space between them to avoid the force of the explosion and before the smoke cleared he flickered before his opponent and went low to avoid a preemptive counter-strike. He kicked out his legs and felt the air shift as Kakashi dodged. He calculated where Kakashi might be next and sent out a barrage of _shuriken_ hidden in the movements of his shadow, all of which Kakashi's skillfully avoided.

He felt a spike in chakra that didn't belong to his opponent and acted quickly.

The black commas in his irises swirled as he calculated the trajectory of his weapons. Itachi quickly reached into his utilities pouch and hurled a handful of wind-chakra enhanced kunai following his shuriken barrage. The kunais threw the shuriken off their course, forcing them to veer off at odd but intended angles and made a rather dangerous frame around one trembling police rookie who was no doubt trying to calm his palpitations.

A weak "Itachi-sama," alerted the two of the relative safety of everyone in the vicinity.

Kakashi covered up his sharingan, the spar was essentially over anyway, and turned a lazy eye at the quaking rookie in his version of respectful acknowledgement.

"Thank you for your time Hatake-sempai." Itachi gave a shallow bow to his sparring partner in dismissal. It was only polite, even if Kakashi had shown up out of nowhere and whisked him away to spar without his permission.

"Still so formal after all these years, Uchiha-sama," Kakashi tsked. "_ja ne._" He reached into his pouch and pulled out his neon orange bound soft porn and made his way off the training grounds.

Itachi wiped the sweat from his brow and turned to the rookie that had managed to track him down to the isolated training grounds Kakashi had chosen for their impromptu spar.

"I have a message from Shin-taichou," the messenger reached into his utilities pouch and pulled out a scroll. "He asked that you come as soon as you can to relieve him of his interim captaincy."

"I'll being coming in later this week," Itachi offered. "Thank you." He waited until the rookie was completely gone before letting out a tired sigh.

The police force was another responsibility that he'd have to be taking on, and once he did that there would be no turning back. It made this drastic change from his previous life real. He felt a finger twitch at the uneasiness he was feeling. He'd been home and only home for the past week and the adrenaline packed life he used to lead made it difficult to adjust to the mundane one he was living now. The spar with Kakashi was a good outlet for his excess energy but was woefully short.

He ran a tired hand through his hair.

He needed a bath.

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Itachi sighed as he sank chin deep into the scalding hot water of his bath. The steam made it difficult to breathe and his skin flushed an angry red but it felt good.

He leaned his head back against edge of the porcelain tub and stared up at the ceiling as he went over what he had left to do for the day. The list wasn't long, which suited him just fine. He'd finally be able to get some sleep.

Itachi ran a wet hand over his face.

Tomorrow, he'd go over the scroll his uncle sent him and then go in to discuss whatever else with the man. That settled, he decided it was time to enjoy his bath.

His ninja sensed screamed at him but before he could register the threat there was a splash, and a sudden weight upon his chest forced the oxygen out of lungs. He spluttered to the surface and took a quick breath before he dealt with his latest death threat. He held a hand to the perpetrators forehead to hold him down and held his free forearm across the man's chest.

Only it wasn't a man.

Familiar pale eyes looked up at him under the clear water as she struggled against his death-hold and it was like a bucket of ice water had been poured over him. He quickly let the girl go and back away.

Hinata held onto the side of the soaking tub and pulled herself to the surface as she gasped and wheezed for breath.

Time stood still as he watched her heaving chest, very visible under her thoroughly drenched _white_ nightgown. The fabric clung to her and displayed just how bare she really was under her garment. For all the chivalry that was drilled into him as a child, he couldn't tear his eyes away.

"_Ano_…" He broke out of his trance to see Hinata watch him stare at her in all of her indecency, a flush so prominent on her face that he wondered if it was possible to burn yourself. Then she promptly sagged like a puppet with its strings cut and reality chose that moment to slap him across the face.

There was only one explanation for this.

"Aoi!" He called with an urgency he never felt before. He rushed to catch the unconscious heiress before she drowned herself. "Aoi, get in here right now!"

"Master?" a timid voice called.

Itachi turned to face the blue bird, sharingan red and blazing. "What?" He spluttered in a rare moment of ineloquence. "What is this!" he demanded after a few incoherent tries.

"I thought master would like some help washing his hair?" Aoi replied hiding his face.

He didn't know why he bothered asking. Itachi grabbed a towel and quickly wrapped it around his waist to prevent further indecent exposure.

"Do you think you can manage to dry her fully clothed," Itachi worded his request carefully, he wait for Aoi to do as he said, his sharp eyes took in the constipated expression on the birds face and knew he was going to hear something he didn't want to.

"Was there something you wanted to say Aoi?"

The bird's cobalt beak opened then snapped shut as Aoi held a fisted wing to his mouth, almost like he was physically holding back the words.

"Aoi if you have something to say, please say it. I do not enjoy loitering around with just a towel protecting my modesty."

"I'm sorry master, I can't!" Aoi burst into a fit of tears. "Please don't give me away!"

"You can't do what?"

"I can only take on one wish at a time. I haven't completed your first wish yet." Aoi responded fearfully. "but I'll get that done Master! I swear. I'll go right now to work on it!" the words were barely out of Aoi's mouth before he vanished.

Itachi contemplated calling the bird back, but didn't want to stand half naked in his bathroom with a drenched heiress in his arms. His mother was home and so was little Sasuke, the last thing he wanted to do was try explain what he was _not_ doing with a girl to his little brother. It was about twenty years too early to be having any conversations along that vein with Sasuke.

He adjusted the girl in his arms and realized that he just missed something, he was sure of it. It took Itachi a few heartbeats before dread washed over him.

He would be the one to get the Hyuuga out of her wet clothes.

Itachi closed his eyes in frustration, this was not happening! Ever since Aoi had come into his life, it was one crooked kunai after another. Though the life of a ninja was unpredictable, there was a certain lull to it that allowed a small degree of complacency. As a now retired ninja his schedule had drastically changed from what he was used to, but being able to adjust was a necessity in his line of work and he was considered one of the best. So really it shouldn't have been so hard for him to adapt to his new life, only his life had veered off quite a bit from what he had been expecting. Which left him where he was now; in the bathroom after an interrupted bath, half naked with a drenched heiress in his arms.

Itachi's eyes flew open when the towel around his waist decided to unravel and fall to the floor. With luggage in his arms there was nothing he could have done to protect himself from the sudden _breeziness_.

"Ni-tama!" It was comical the way Itachi's eyes grew to the size of saucers. Itachi threw himself at the door before Sasuke could open it and sent out a silent apology to his brother.

"Ni-tama! I have to do a number two!" Little Sasuke cried out as he jiggled the door knob and slammed his small weight against the door. "Ni-tama! It's coming out!"

"Ni-tama!"

_This was not happening. _

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Hinata woke to not an unfamiliar place but an unexpected one. She recognized the dresser and the barrenness of the room as her master's home. Right! Her master's home, she was supposed to be cleaning! She sat up with difficulty but barely had the chance to realize that before she rolled and hit the ground. "Eep!" she squeaked in surprise.

She felt her body bounce off the hard wood floor and winced at the sudden thump her body made, it was deafening in the quiet of the room. She tried to get her hands free but found they were trapped at her sides, they were gripped uncomfortably in wet fabric and the material chaffed the bare skin of her arms.

_What in the world?_

Hinata rolled to her side and tried to sit up but the weight wrapping her upper body made it difficult to balance upright. She fought to get her hands free, and when she couldn't she began to panic. She was so caught up in it that she barely heard the click before light flooded the room and she was face to face with none other than Uchiha Itachi, her master.

"Uchiha-sama!" she cried in relief which quickly turned to anxiety. "Uchiha-sama, I'll get to right to work. I'm just having trouble-"

The Uchiha picked her up bridal style and gently laid her on the bed. An unreadable expression was etched into the perfect contours of his face.

"Uchiha-sama?" she inquired when a few heartbeats had passed and he made no movements. "I'm sorry!" she squeaked but was met with silence. She tried to sit up but found once again found herself rolling to meet the hard wood floors of her master's room.

"Don't move," His quiet voice cracked through the silence of the room like a whip and she straightened and kept rigid. She felt the towels around her beginning to loosen. She was grateful for the blood flow to her upper extremities and let out a soft sigh. "I'm sorry Uchiha-sama, I'll get right to work!"

She adjusted her wet night gown and jumped to her feet to get to work. "Uchiha-sama?" She looked up at her master's face when he grabbed her upper arm to stop her. Why was he acting so strange and why was he blushing?

"Uchiha-sama? Is something wrong?"

"I'll give you some clothes to wear, that wet night gown must be uncomfortable," He said softly looking straight at her face, his eyes were leveled with hers and his rigid body language indicated that they weren't going to stray.

Why was he acting so-

"Oh!" She cried out. She jerked her arm out of the man's grasp and covered herself up as best as she could. She felt her cheeks begin to flush and closed her eyes. This just had to be a really, really horrible dream. Because this wasn't happening, this wasn't happening at all!

"Hyuuga-san, please-."

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Hinata woke up feeling uncomfortably wet. Her nightgown was a tad more than damp and it clung to her body like a second skin. She threw off her comforters to cool off and decided that was a bad idea. The morning breeze was just a little too cold and wrapped herself in her blankets.

The sun was out and the sky a clear blue, the watercolor display of the rising sun was long gone since she had overslept and she felt a little disoriented by that fact. She was an early bird and it troubled her that lately she had been waking up later and later, especially when she had made it a point to go to bed earlier.

A firm knock on her door broke her out of her thoughts. "Hinata-sama, breakfast is served."

"_Hai_," Hinata called back. "I'll be right there." She quickly changed out of her nightgown into something more appropriate for a family breakfast and rubbed the last of the sleep from her eyes.

She didn't have time to be wondering what she was doing wrong, especially not when she would have to be playing catch up for the rest of her day.

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><p>translation:<p>

Taichou: captain

Ikemen-kun means pretty boy, or most literally sexy man. ike=sexy, men=men/man

Sempai: senior/mentor

Ja ne: shortened version of see you later


End file.
